A Saint, the Dalai Lama and a festival that was a slice of heaven
The timetable clashes were brutal but Laneway Festival still delivered a walloping dose of 2015’s finest music, reports Mikey Cahill and Cameron Adams.
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Another year, another 4 star banger for the Laneway Festival.
Our suave, Sri Lankan silverfox cabbie dropped us off at 12.30pm, an ideal time to arrive before the masses and just enough minutes before Connan Mockasin to get a drink, eat a Pink Lady apple and gather oneself. As 10 of us piled out of the Maxicab I asked him if he’d be back to pick us up later. “10.30pm? Ha. By then I’ll be drunk,” he answered.
In truth we should have got him to ferry us to and from the Dean Turner Stage all day. It wasn’t just a hike, it was a trek. I would never say a bad word about Magic Dirt’s fallen bassist but getting to The Stage That Bears His Name™ was such a ridiculous distance away you needed a Sherpa, some scroggin and 4 litres of water. Meredith and Golden Plains have reduced their capacities in the past and still prospered, perhaps next year’s Laneway Festival could lose a 1000 of its 15K. Bigger isn’t always better; it’s not the size of the wave but the motion of the ocean.
Back to Connan Mockasin (AUS) and the start of the day. Having grabbed our P.I.P tickets (Pretty Important Person), Mockasin’s goopy, goofy goodness was always going to be great...and the Caramello Koala (he’s Australian now, sorry New Zealand, it’s just, well, he’s become successful) hit us with Pink Floyd-esque grooves, headwear more Carmen Miranda than Jamiroquai and a band having a yacht-load of fun. I’m The Man That Will Find You bucked and rolled, It’s Choade My Dear was an introverted delight and Faking Jazz Together brought out the jazz cigarettes. One friend correctly trainspotted Mac DeMarco just by his guitar sound (!) from 200 metres away.
Unfortunately DeMarco didn’t mack on Mock’ (they’ve been pashing a lot on stage lately), he did just enough to augment the performance without overshadowing the white-haired gran-child. A small scuffle broke out between a kid who’d jumped the fence and a panting security guard during Forever Dolphin Love, just as it sped up, acting as a Looney Tunes soundtrack as Speedy Gonzales scampered away from Sylvester the Cat’s clutches. He got away. Mixed feelings about that. “Thanks everyone! Have a good night. Errr. Day,” Mockasin stumbled over his words, making us all love him even more. It was an unpretentious end to a portentous set. Part Andy Kaufmann, part Tonetta, absolutely no Dave Dobbyn. A slice of heaven.
Andy Bull talks too much.
Not really, his banter is on point and hasn’t got the whiff of self-important Sydney artiste. “I’m not sure whether anyone heard the Like A Version I did for Triple J,” he proffered nervously, fans cutting him off with an affirmative roar, “Oh good, otherwise that story would have gone nowhere.” Bull’s jockey timbre suited Tear For Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World and his shadowy sunshine pop drew a huge crowd. I woulda liked him to wear something sharper though; his normcore outfit doth not befit his songsmanship. Ask yourself, Andy, what would Bowie do? Bull joked he would take his pants off, everybody growled approval. “Are you ready from some d-ck, Melbourne? (pauses, laughing) This is dime a dozen d-ck, you can get it anywhere.”
Mac DeMarco’s jizz-jazz goes deeper than that throwaway gag (reflex). The wiley Canuck is touring his Salad Days album, a record custom built for kinky lazing on a sunny afternoon, letting his spangly, spunky guitars wash over you as you wash down Soft Shell Crab Burgers with a Tropical Storm. His mom Agnes DeMarco introduced him as a nice young man going places and he bounded on wearing a Maggie Simpson t-shirt, kissed his hard-partying mother and did what he always does at festivals: kill them softly with his song.
The Limp Bizkit band banter was on point “We’re gonna blow up that boat!” and DeMarco zinged lines like “Check the butt out! It needs a spritz.” Life doesn’t get much better than singing along with Mac and a throng on a hot day, half cut: “As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder, Rolling through life, to roll over and die, La la la lala , La la la lala.” Let Her Go, Cooking Up Something Good (an ode to meth labs the world over) and Still Together were grouse. If you looked close enough, DeMarco had A N G E L O L S E N painted on his fingernails, a “Mac-icure” quipped the Mistletone Mafia.
I missed Vic Mensa, heard he was fairly missable in retrospect. Likewise, Banks, who has scaled up the totem pole of moody, electronic indie before she’s ready. More style than dub-stance.
Trotting past Seekae’s set on the way to Jungle, The Stars Below came galloping towards my ears, rattling my cage and chucking a wobbly at the conventions of 4/4 electronic music. Test And Recognise was equally captivating, my feet caught between London and Sydney. Alex Cameron’s socks featured the black-tux Monopoly Man tossing greenbacks in the air with the speech bubble “Make It Rain.” His wish would come true an hour later, a light mist taking the edge off temperatures that were upwards of 30 degrees.
Jungle are a festival staple after only 18 months in the game. The closer you get to them the more their every-person disco vibes hits home. They pitched the tempo of The Heat up a smidge, Julia obviously didn’t return someone’s texts, Time’s snaking bassline wore everyone’s trainers down and Busy Earnin’ cheekily heralded the arrival of itself. Only a curmudgeon would deny their bubbly impact midafternoon.
One day prior to his 30th birthday, Dan Luscombe gave Courtney Barnett’s sound a beef(cake) injection. Barnett was already going to play the set of her life, excitedly dipping into nearly-released debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. The Southpaw from Hobart proved she’s heading north, up and up and away in 2015.
Other reports gave Royal Blood and Benjmain Booker huge thumbs up, like Everlong-clip big.
Jon Hopkins left the minimal vibe of Insides behind for a more Laneway-friendly tech set reflecting his most recent album Immunity. Maximalism innit. Ironically the punters throwing their hands in the air didn’t realise Hopkins was dropping Light Through the Veins, which wound up being sampled by Coldplay. Chris Martin managed to subvert Laneway without lifting a finger.
Tkay Maidza made the most of replacing Lykke Li with a prime position. Fresh from Triple J Hottest 100 action, the 18-year-old continued her role as the coolest thing to come from Adelaide since Sia. Her onstage confidence has grown to the point where playing in front of a heaving Misteltone Stage didn’t even make her flinch, she casually ignored the rogue footwear tossed on stage by some tosser. Maidza slayed with crowd singalong Brontosaurus and still managed to keep the double whammy of Switch Lanes and U-Huh to the end, the latter featuring an onstage invasion that saw the audience targeted by super soakers.
Swedes Little Dragon were polished, but maybe had one too many mellow songs for the occasion, so when Ritual Union dropped there was almost a communal sigh of relief. Yumiki Nagano remains a powerful onstage presence. Nice stand up work from drummer Erik Bodin too.
A colleague took umbrage to Future Islands’ dad dancing and Cookie Monster vocals. Sucks to be wrong. These are just two reasons Samuel T Herring is the most magnetic frontman on the Laneway bill. His other moves included the face-being-unmasked-cheek-rip, Russian Cossack hop, the tasting-a-slice-of-life-with-index-fingers and crying-his-eyes-out-at-the-futility-of-life-oh-man. I’m pretty sure there were other members on stage (doing some of the heavy lifting on synths, it should be noted) but I didn’t look at them once. It was all Herr Herring. Seasons (Waiting On You) tucked neatly into the middle set, he death-roared “to craaaaaave” like we knew he would and when they finished with the faux-pomp new-wave rocker Spirit, Herring pounded the chest of his crisp white t-shirt and leaned right into the front row as everyone did the “How special was that?” move with their eyebrows.
Sideboob note: One enthusiastic punter’s bra was thrown from the crowd during Future Islands’ set and landed a few feet from Herring.
“Oh, it’s a Gorman,” said a sour voice from the front row.
Caribou is the Dalai Lama of dance music.
He gives love, he gets love back, he offers up “honeycomb productions” (as a fellow scribe put it) and now His Holiness has an album, Our Love, full of mid-tempo heart-beaters and a light show that makes everyone glow incandescently. Thanking the crowd repeatedly after Silver and Can’t Do Without You, it’s clear Dan Snaith lives to give. His band are battle-hardened on the outside and soft like nougat on the inside, the purple and red hues swept over their beaded brows as they wormburned through Odessa and (of course) ended with an 11 minute version of Sun. Could be time to conclude their shows with something else though, how’s about his rework of Virgo Four’s It’s a Crime? It’s got enough “Caribou” about it and it’s a safe (ti)bet to bring it home.
All reports suggest FKA Twigs caved in the sky and everyone’s faces. I missed her – gutted – because my Tamil transport wasn’t available. Too Far Basket. Now it’s Monday though and I want to write on the blackboard a hundred times:
“I’M AN IDIOT FOR NOT GOING TO SEE TWIGS.”
If you were there then you’ll enjoy these pictures. Having to look at them is my punishment.
Annie Clark is a winner. In fact, she just scooped up a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. St. Vincent has an arsenal of arty-not-farty songs she can deploy and moves to match. In the same way AC/DC’s Angus Young owns the catwalk leg-hop, Clark invented and now owns the Loon Walk©, shifting her feet at 45 degree angles to glide across the stage and change direction unpredictably like a West Coast Lady butterfly. Back in black hair, St Vincent shredded and shredded and shredded a little more, ripping through Rattlesnake, Cruel, Marrow, Surgeon and Cheerleader, then giving her newer fans something to latch onto (“Get baaack”) with Digital Witness, Regret, Birth in Reverse, Huey Newton and Bring Me Your Loves as grey and pink lights cut through the huddled smoke. Tremendous talent.
Note to crowd: There were far too many cowards throwing half-full drinks at strangers. I spotted this on four occasions. Who does that?
If you are friends with someone who did maybe a. they’re not friends material; b. you should have reprimanded them at the time so they would feel “chastened” like the Mad Monk and re-evaluate their future plans for politics/festivals.
Overheard:
“Andy Bull, he’s like the son of Vika and Linda right?”
“We should start Future Irelands, a tribute act from Dublin.”
“Tony Abbott is a Choade Scholar.”
“I’ll buy you a birthday drink.” (still waiting!)
“This is the long, skateboarding Jon Hopkins track.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“But we had to make an exception for ice tea, because there was *just* so much of it.”
“This festival should be called Para by the Yarra”
“Nah mate, it’s the Maribyrnong. And they just pulled someone’s arm out of it.”
“Perfect Pussy were a definite highlight.”
“Welcome to f--king Footscray! We’re really chuffed that you’re here!” - Mayor of Maribyrnong. Apparently. UPDATE: Cuss confirmed.
Self-Love T-shirt o’ the Day
LOVE GAMES. Rated R18+
Meta Tweet o’ The Day.
Say hi if you're coming to @lanewayfest. I'm the guy with the beard and thick-rimmed glasses #Laneway2015
— Darren Levin (@darren_levin) February 7, 2015Thanks everybody for the high-fives and for letting me eavesdrop on your conversations, see you next year or here right now twitter.com/joeylightbulb
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